Fobbsie on the Verge: September 11, 2011: Time to Stop Remembering So Much

Ten years after 9/11/2001 we are still vividly reliving the trauma of that day. The videos of that day are being shown on TV and shared everywhere, along with messages of remembrance on social media websites. I am in no way saying we should forget the victims of this terrible event. They should be remembered in a quiet and respectful way. No grand speeches, no giant monuments. The actually mourning should be done by the people who lost friends and family. The rest of the nation should work to make our country the place it use to be; less angry, more prosperous, and more caring.

America is like the widow who lost her husband 10 years ago and can't stop mourning. In her bitterness she just lets life pass her by as she waits to die so she can join her husband in the afterlife. The world did not change on 9/11/2001, we changed and then we changed the world. Now we need to change again, so the next generation of children will know something other than war, fear and hatred.

We are prosecuting two wars that we were told were necessary for our safety. These wars are killing people and our opportunity to move forward as a country. America has turned into a police state internally and externally we are the biggest warlord in the world. Politicians are still beating the 9/11 drum even though they clearly do not care about the 9/11 first responders and the ground zero clean up personnel, because if they did they would have passed the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act in 2006 instead of 2011. Better still they would have had the cleanup crews wear proper equipment in 2001 instead of lying about the toxicity of the air and debris around “Ground Zero”.

We have wasted lives, money and time on vengeance. It is now time to stop; we cannot go on as a country hating and fearing everything and everyone that is different. There have always been people in the world that want to harm us, there always will be and our actions over the last ten years have increased the number. However, we do not need to live our lives in fear and hatred of the rest of the world. We, Americans, need to let go of some of our anger because if we don’t we will destroy ourselves. No outside forces can destroy us but our fear and hatred is and will continue to destroy the America some of us remember.

I say some of us because the young people who grew up over the past 10 years don’t really know anything but our country at war, fear and hatred of Muslims, violations of our constructional rights through spying on US citizens, torturing people, detaining people indefinitely without a trial, the constant searches when you travel. This needs to stop. This is not America. This is what the NAZI’s did. This is how Stalin treated his countrymen. This is how the Stasi in East Germany acted. We are better than all those people. America represents truth, justice and freedom. Not a police state where all the citizens cower in fear and mistrust everything and everyone.

Many countries have experienced terrorism without losing their way or their minds. The parable of the boiling frog is good analogy for our situation:

The Parable of the Boiled Frog

“If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will immediately try to scramble out. But if you place the frog in room temperature water, and don’t scare him, he’ll stay put. Now, if the pot sits on a heat source, and if you gradually turn up the temperature, something very interesting happens. As the temperature rises, the frog will do nothing.

In fact, he may show every sign of enjoying himself. As the temperature gradually increases, the frog will become groggier and groggier, until he is unable to climb out of the pot. Though there is nothing restraining him, the frog will sit there and boil. Why?

Because the frog’s internal apparatus for sensing threats to survival is geared to sudden changes in the environment, not to slow, gradual changes.”

America is the frog and things have changed around us slowly and we just don’t think about it too much. We are lulled into complacency. We are worried about things that don’t matter. We are lead to believe that all these changes have made us safer and. are manipulated into believing we must stay at war perpetually to maintain that safety. We are lead to believe its okay to violate our 4^th Amendment rights every time you send an e-mail, make a call or fly on an airplane because we are “safer”.

The 4^th Amendment of the US Constitution

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Many people believe it is okay to torture others for the sake of our security; giving it the less offensive name “Enhanced Interrogation”. The war criminals, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld do interviews and book signings where they openly discuss their crimes and how much they love to torture people in our name. America used to arrest, try and convict war criminals, now we watch them on TV talk shows. These practices haven’t stopped with the current administration and it makes our current leaders just as guilty as the past leaders. Especially since Guantanamo hasn’t been closed as promised.

There are lots of questions we should ask ourselves this day: Have you had enough vengeance? If the answer is no, then, how many of our soldiers have to die for you to feel better? Over 4700 soldiers have died in Iraq and over 2700 soldiers have died in Afghanistan. These numbers include the British, Germany and other NATO forces fighting our pointless wars right alongside us but most of the deaths are American. Tens of thousands more soldiers have been seriously wounded. If those numbers are not high enough for you, you really need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself “For what?”.

What have we achieved or gained from our perpetual wars besides thousands of dead, tens of thousands wounded, millions seeing us as an evil empire and a huge deficit? What do you personally get from endless war? Do you really feel safer now? Do you really want to use your energy hating everyone that is different? Do you think the wars are making people like us more or better? What was it all for? Have we gained anything? What have we lost?

For me, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is not only a time to remember and mourn those who died and the 343 who gave their lives evacuating at least 16,000 from the crumbling towers. It is a time also to reflect on what has happened over the past ten years. I urge everyone to do the same. Think about what we were, how we changed as a result of our chosen response to 9/11, how we changed the world by our response and where we are going in the future. We need to change course because if we don’t move in a more positive direction our republic will be just like the Roman Republic, gone.

Interesting 9/11 articles:

9/11: What Didn't Change

After 9/11, Was War the Only Option?

Decisions, Not Events, Shaped Leaders After 9/11

Recommended Books